Fanny Brice and the “Schnooks” Strategy: Negotiating a Feminine Comic Persona on the Air
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Michele Hilmes Fanny Brice and the “Schnooks” Strategy: Negotiating a Feminine Comic Persona on the Air No one could claim that the career of Fanny Brice here is Kate Smith—in a system that preferred has been overlooked. Frequently in the news its female stars as secondary sidekicks (Mary during her long career—more for her private than Livingstone to Jack Benny, Portland Hoffa to Fred her professional life—she has been the subject Allen), relatively humorless “straight women” to of three biographies, numerous popular articles, their partner’s comic lead (Molly in Fibber McGee and several major motion pictures.1 The fact that and Molly), or as the recurring “dumb dora” of most of these efforts have stirred controversy only vaudeville mixed-pair comics (most famously, seems to reflect the tempestuous and contradictory Gracie Allen). Within this carefully delimited life of their heroine, whose career from ethnic containment of the disruptive potential of women’s burlesque to legitimate stage to radio spans more humor, Brice stands out. In her early years on than thirty years and three dramatic marriage-and- NBC in the Chase and Sanborn Hour (1933) divorce scenarios. Amidst the drama of Brice’s and on the Ziegfeld Follies of the Air (CBS 1936) life, and the colorful anecdotes of her role in Brice’s was a woman’s voice speaking humorous the lives of such showmen as Florenz Ziegfeld and sometimes bawdy lines, directing attention and Billy Rose, her most enduring contribution both to her gender and to her ethnicity, defying to popular entertainment—the comic character bounds of taste and appropriate feminine behavior. Baby Snooks, whom Brice herself always referred As a consequence she often ran afoul of network to as “Schnooks”—has received relatively little censors and posed difficulties to sponsors. attention. Indeed Brice’s radio work generally, The character of Baby Snooks, developed though itself occurring over a twenty-year period, originally for radio in 1933, became the main is treated as a secondary derivative of her stage staple of her act in the Good News and Maxwell work that added little to her development as a House Coffee Time programs on NBC between comic artist and was far from glamorous. The 1937 and 1944 and eventually received top billing spectacle of a forty-five-year-old woman dressed on The Baby Snooks Show (CBS 1944-1951). as a small child, with screwed-up face, whiny This essay will concentrate on the creation and voice, and the famous cry of “Wah—ah—aaaah!” development of the “Schnooks” character as a that ended many routines, has been taken as either strategy for negotiating the restrictive conventions comically trivial or below the dignity of the of radio on women’s laughter. Snooks, both de- satiric and sexual stage comedienne on whom her sexualized and de-ethnicized, permitted Brice to biographers would like to concentrate. make trenchant and hilarious commentary on a But it can be argued that Brice’s impact on variety of social hypocrisies in a manner better American broadcast culture was greater than suited to the hybrid setting of radio and, later, broadcasting’s impact on Brice. She remains one television—at once public and private, mindful of of the few women to headline a major nighttime its high culture obligations but catering to the tastes radio show as a single billing—her only rival of the mass public, based on a commercialism A SCREEN OF ONE’S OWN 11 Heather Osborne-Thompson, editor, Spectator 25:2 (Fall 2005): 11 - 25. FANNY BRICE AND THE “SCHNOOKS” STRATEGY of the power of feminine comedy, in both its transgressive potential and its careful containment.2 Mrs. Cohen at the Beach: Brice’s early radio career Besides the usual difficulties of researching radio—the non- existence of recordings from the early 1930s and before, the frequently changing schedules, guest appearances that are hard to document, and the fleeting, unrepeatable nature of the performance—one reason that Brice’s radio career has received relatively little attention from her biographers may be that by the time radio beckoned, most of Brice’s innovative stage work had already been accomplished. One biographer explicitly links Brice’s movement into radio with the two events that mark the official “death” of the vaudeville/burlesque circuit, both in 1932: the closing of the Palace theater in New York and the actual death of Florenz Ziegfeld, the legendary showman who had “discovered” Brice and urged her towards the “Jewish” dialect and persona that would make her “Genius for Satire:” Brice as Jewish evangelist Soul Saving famous.3 Certainly by 1932 Brice Sadie (above) and the risque countess Dubinsky (opposite) had reached the pinnacle of her from the Ziegfeld Follies of 1934. theatrical fame. Having appeared in numerous Ziegfeld Follies since addressed to women but under masculine control. 1910 and repeatedly headlining her own act on It also represents an important contribution to the prestigious Orpheum and RKO vaudeville the development of the child-focused domestic circuits, Brice’s popularity had peaked with two situation comedy so central to early television, Broadway vehicles produced by her soon-to-be which would draw on the edgy innocence and ex-husband, Billy Rose: Sweet and Low, which ran inversion of hierarchies invented by Brice for from October 1930 through April 1931, and Crazy Baby Snooks, sustained by a series of talented and Quilt, which toured across the United States from influential radio writers and directors. Though in May 1931 through April 1932. some ways the character of Snooks may represent Though Brice developed many comic Brice’s stepping back from the more outspoken personae and acts, she is best known (aside and outrageous humor of her early career, for radio from the perennial “My Man”) for songs such as it provided an important articulation and extension “Sadie Salome,” “Second Hand Rose,” “I’m An 12 FALL 2005 MICHELE HILMES Indian” and for routines such as “Mrs. Cohen at vicious caricature, fulfilling the period’s the Beach,” all of which drew from the vaudeville unflattering expectations of immigrant tradition of “Yiddish” dialect and humor. Though behavior and justifying its prejudicial Fanny Borach (Brice’s original name) was of assumptions. As Brice interpreted her, Jewish heritage, she had been born in Brooklyn however, she emerged as a character and no more naturally spoke with the accent that much more innocuous in performance characterized her act than did Bert Williams (a than on paper. Brice’s expressive frequent Follies co-star) possess the artificially delivery replaced harshness with humor dark skin his stage performances mandated. Both and defused the piece’s underlying anti- blackface and dialect offered a kind of distancing Semitism … Largely through the force of the artist from the material, a way of projecting of her own personality, Brice humanized social satire or unacceptable characteristics onto the stereotype and rounded the caricature an “othered” group.4 In Brice’s case, her function into a character.6 in the Ziegfeld Follies may have been to embody, under a “disguise” of ethnicity, the working- This reliance on physical performance and class elements of burlesque that Ziegfeld had so innuendo, often used to convey sexual meaning, carefully excised from his elevated “celebration of was a characteristic of burlesque. Robert C. Allen the American girl.”5 Thus ethnic and blackface points out that many burlesque routines lost their performers took on exaggerated characteristics point on paper: “Because so much of burlesque’s of the “abject” while often playing with the sexual transgressiveness was visual rather very distinctions and liminality that made such a than verbal, courtroom accounts of burlesque performance necessary. This strategy also allowed performances conveyed almost nothing of their real-life members of subordinated social groups an suggestiveness.”7 The humor and meaning entree to the stage which they might otherwise not resided in the “twist” the performers gave it, have had, providing that they played along with whether verbal or literal. the impersonation. Brice was adept at negotiating Impersonating head-injured ballet dancers the double-edged weapon of ethnic humor, at once (“Becky is Back in the Ballet”), Jewish evangelists taking possession of the “othered” characterization (“Soul-Saving Sadie,” a take-off on Aimee Semple while simultaneously disavowing or disarming it, MacPherson), graceless fan dancers, or the hyper- notably through the physical, almost slapstick sexual movie vamp (“I’m Bad”), Brice’s genius quality of her performance. for physical satire both took the edge off her ethnic Barbara W. Grossman notes this defusing and sexual humor and marked out a performance effect in her discussion of Brice’s popular routine, “Mrs. Cohen at the Beach,” in which Brice plays a heavily-accented, somewhat vulgar and earthy mother of four, shepherding her children and husband through a day at the seaside: Mrs. Cohen could have been an extremely unpleasant creation. Portrayed by anyone else, she would have been a A SCREEN OF ONE’S OWN 13 FANNY BRICE AND THE “SCHNOOKS” STRATEGY space unique to Brice—and one unheard of for a Sanborn Coffee Hour variety program, sponsored female comedian. Often earthy and sometimes by Standard Brands, from April 12 to September slightly bawdy, full of double entendres and subtle 27, 1933, Sunday nights at eight o’clock on NBC references, Brice’s combination of ethnic humor Red. and physical satire earned her the highest acclaim Though sponsor, agency and star were now from stage critics and audiences alike. Radio happy, Brice very quickly ran afoul of NBC’s would be another matter, and another less risky fledgling Continuity Acceptance policies. By May device for permitting Brice’s comic persona to 24, trouble over “gag lines in Jewish” resulted in survive on the air would soon become necessary.